Summong Skill Or MP?

What would you summoners think out there? I was talking about if you had to choose over for example Astute Cape or Blue Cape what would you use? I'm saying this because I like to switch to all Summoning skill when i'm using a blood pact. I thought why get Blue Cape if you are going to switch to Summoning Skill after?

Oh yeah I spelled the topic wrong >_> lol

I usually stack skill gear. Astute cape is 5 skill and 25 mp. If I had it I would use that. Blue +1 is only 20 mp, so Astute all the way on this particular gear slot.

Well, it's like any other mage that macros in INT/MND/Elemental/Enfeebling/Blue Skill etc. and some people will swap back to MP gear after casting, but... since you've exhausted that MP, probably not worth it unless you can quickly refresh it (not likely gonna happen on SMN.)

I'd rather idle in Fidelity Mantle over an MP cape, since it actually boosts avatar melee (albeit not by much, but it's something.) Macro Astute for JAs/BPs.

It depends on what you would like to do.. If you're going to have favour out, skill > MP because of the added benefits.

I think 317+ is the magic number and they have to be on for the effect to be granted.

If you need to constantly spam BP in the form of cures, etc for campaign, then skill has less of an issue and you should focus on MP gear.

IMO like everything its kinda situational.

If you are doing a solo kite MP will probably serve you better while you can still macro'ing Skill gear in for rages and wards.

While doing pt events/battles you are probably best off stacking skill and -BP delay to get it down to the 45second cap and use the Refresh effects from rdms/brds/cors etc to keep your mp up, but as i said its situational.

Blue Cape+1 is actually 40mp

Mp+20
AND
Converts 20 Hp to Mp

dont forget

Summoning magic skill does several things:

1. Decreases the wait time between when a Elemental Spirit is summoned and uses a spell and the time before casting another.
2. Increases the intelligence of the AI of an Elemental Spirit. The spirit will generally cast more powerful and relevant spells more often. When its AI is good, the Light Spirit sometimes defies the spell recast timer when your HP is low.
3. Magic skill determines the chance to be interrupted while casting magic that uses that skill.
4. If you are over skill cap it affects Blood Pact: Rage and Blood Pact: Ward.
* Blood Pact: Ward with standard duration of less than 180 seconds:
o 30sec duration: +1sec/skill over cap, 150 skill over cap is needed to reach max duration of 180 seconds
o 60sec duration: +2sec/skill over cap, 60 skill over cap is needed to reach max duration of 180 seconds
o 90sec duration: +3sec/skill over cap, 30 skill over cap is needed to reach max duration of 180 seconds
o 180sec duration: no gain
* Blood Pact: Rage
o Accuracy bonus and Magic Accuracy bonus based on how far over the skill cap the player is. Source
5. Increases the MP recovered when using Elemental Siphon.
6. Effects the potency of Avatar's Favor.

ok i got lazy and copy pasted lol

Oh, duh. My bad. I just looked at the hp>mp.

kinda think Intensifying Cape is better over blue specially if u /sch

In general MP > Skill. With enough skill you can break the final tear on Favor, although without merits there is a lot of ground to make up
279 > 317+ so just say 40 points
"easy to get"
10 Evokers Ring
5 Evokers Horn
7 Summoning Torque
5 Oracle's Branconi
10 Summoner's Bracer's (+1 Pert cost compared to Nashira)
only gets you to 37 points (1 point short of the cutoff?)

"Rare"
+10 Bahamut's Staff
+5 Marduk feet (or Nashira)
+5 Marduk legs (instead of Oracle's)
+7 Marduk head
+3 Summoning Earring
+5 Astute Cape
really you can get over the bridge, but the majority of the "rare" items are beyond what most people will have.

Macro in your skill+ gear when you Blood Pact, and when you Syphon... If you have enough to break tier when your using favor exclusively do that. But stocking Smn skill isn't going to help the same way stacking other magic skills will, there just isn't as much of it out there.

Also barring merits i think your capping at:

+10 Bahamut's Staff
+ 7 Marduk head
+12 Summoner's Bracer's +1
+ 5 Marduk legs
+ 5 Marduk feet
+ 7 Summoning Torque
+ 5 Astute Cape
+ 2 Summoning Belt
+ 3 Summoning Earring
+10 Evoker's Ring
____
+66~?? without merits

which leaves you at a loss for capping out short BP's and even requires almost maximum gear for mid length (wards)

Like any other mage jobs, you need a fine balance of the 3 most important things:

-perp cost
Summoning Skill
+MP

While some people would say -BP time would be included, its not needed most of the time since -BP gear affects one or more of the above. And if you really stack up on -BP gear, your MP would suffer cause of the much higher perp cost.

You could switch it out when you use BPs too though, just don't full time -BP gear.

But for the other 95% of the time, your gear should have the above three, and you should prioritise the above in that order.

umm b staff is 5 skill augmented mythic staff from annm can have 10

Its Missing a few Vital pieces like:

Nash Hands
AF1 +1 Feet

So its a bit heavy on perp costs for everything aside from carby (Mitts only when carby out of course)

It serves me well and is balanced for pretty much whatever i do. Obviously any suggestions on tips or improvements will be greatly appreciated^^

http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=122097

SMN Skill doesn't do ANYTHING unless you're using a BP OR have Avatars Favor up. If you use a BP, go all out on SMN Skill, don't hold back. With Avatars Favor up, you should try and break 317 skill.

I personally macro all the BP recast gear I can for the second I use the BP, then switch gear to my SMN Skill before the BP actually goes off. Best way to do it imo.

Considering you can easily blow thru the MP from the Blue Cape and the Stat bonuses it gives arent all that important to a SMN i would surely go with an Astute cape over any other . i am not sure what your macro or gear sets look like , but your really are only losing like 15 or so MP at most to trade for another 5 SumMag . Popular belief is that Magic skill only affects BPR ACC and BRW effect times , there are a few ppl who feel that Magic skill also affect normal melee ACC (when skilling up you skill increases when summoning , not just using BP , so it obviously affects something in callin), not to mention it's one less thing you have to swap out . What ~15 MP gunna do ? give you another 2 or 3 ticks presuming you dont use it on Blink or some other Enhancing magic .

This is what I think is the best gear a SMN can have on 95% of the time

I almost have it too. Just need SMN.Earring and SMN.Belt, and buy the 2 expensive stuffs :D

But yeah, I do notice an increase in accuracy on melee hits the higher the skill is. Damage, not so much because its hard to tell against something thats avatars only hit for 19-30 damage lol.

That is indeed a sweet fulltime set up (and a set up i am now aiming for lol)
But a few questions if i may^^

1. Wouldnt staff strap be better than fire grip? same mp no hp- and less enmity?

2. Nash hands or Relic +1? (probably situational i guess)

3. What Augs on redincote? (Perp -2 of course and?)

4. Assuming full Smn Magic merits you are gonna have 285 Skill so with that set up you can reach 322 skill. With the magic number being 317 would it no be beneficial sawpping out say, belt and/or earring for mp and still being over 317?

Magic number is only 317 for Avatar's Favor. Above 317 still increases acc/atk/etc.

And yes, staff strap is better. Also, Nash/Smn +1 should both be used. Nash for perp/idle and Smn +1 for bp's.

SMN has an A- skill in Summoning Magic which is 269 not 279.

I used B.Staff because Fay Croizer isn't on the list yet.

So, in essence, I would still have 317 skill with the gear I have. And Pet:Att+5 and MAB+3. Which are my auguments.

I use Fire grip because I'm also an endgame BLM, and I need to conserve space. Staff strap is just as good, but more expensive. When you are soloing, enmity will do nothing for you, regardless of + or -.

Nash hands full time. Relic (and relic +1) would increase the perp cost to the point that the extra attack and summoning skill that you get from relic would not be justified by having an expensive avatar.

Redingote has Perp-2 and Pet:Acc +15. Its possible with this setup to have a 95% accurate avatar, which makes this as good as any good DD out there (and avatars tank better than most PLDs anyway).

During party setups, there is NO excuse for a SMN to not melee. Thats right, I said it. SMN melee + Avatar melee = win, because you have 2 high damage people instead of one, and you can also keep MP up thanks to Spirit Taker. Dynamis and Limbus, if a SMN is not meleeing, that SMN isn't doing their job right (unless they are puller).

Thanks to Carby's Favor, with this setup you can keep a constant +15 Regen, which would save a LOT of WHMs trouble of keeping /random DDs healed. And you don't need Carby Mitts to get free Carby either (without Favor your perp cost would still be 0).

If you are going to want to use BP- gear, only switch them out when you BP. Keep this gear on the other 95% of the time.

Yeah I think ill go with Summoning Skill. It sucks though my summoning skill is 316 lol >_>

Hmm question: would be Aega's Doublet (Pet acc+3 Body) good for smn with carby kiting? While leveling i mean. Pet stuff work for smn aswell right?

Yea pet stuff works for SMN, Aega's looks good for it's level. For carby kiting 50+ you're better off with Penance or Austere robe though.

Edit: Then you can switch to Vermillion Cloak at 59 for a free carby if you have Carby mitts/staff

Some reason about that makes me laugh. Especialy the "2 High damage" part. I can understand for solo, or dinking around, but not in an endgame enviornment. Things have AoE and your staff skill is weak, so you'd hit for low/miss alot. Also your spirit taker would do like, 30. The day I see a smn meleeing with there per in an endgame, Is the day I die laughing on my floor.

Little edit: Pet can do damage, you can't. Basicly sums up above statement

Wow. Thats the most HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE thing. WHM has high club skill. Heck, my GF can do a fair amount with Hexa strike. Does that mean WHM should be DD'ing as well? Or RDM has high sword skill, can get some nice numbers with Death Blossom. Should they melee as well?

PLD! They have MP. We should stand back and just cure. If we pull hate, its ok. We have high DEF, we can take it. SMN wont be able to do much DMG, or even hit anything in the HNM scene, or end game scene. What kinda SMN would be running around in ACC/STR what not gear to even hit anything, over SMN skill, or perp-?

Troll.

Edit: Changed from Mythic Boon to Death Blossom. Was thinking of that one, but couldn't remember the name.

Quoting for epicness. Rdm gets mystic boon now? I always thought they got death blossum, and whm got mystic boon? Anyway, enough harrassing on that, the rest of what he said is true.(Same things I said, but meh..)

You'd have to swap out your mp/prep/skill gear to be ablke to hit and do damage, so not worth it.

Lol'd. Who's the troll here again?

Protips:

-Mystic Boon is WHM's WS, and completely justifies DD WHM if your setup is good and the target isn't much harder than, say, a merit mob. Alternate between it and Hexa as necessary, never run out of MP. ***'s intense in merits.

-RDM does melee... situationally. You don't seem to understand that word though.

-Melee builds can include -perp gear! Unbelievable, I know. I don't know about meleeing everything, but not meleeing at all is at least as foolish if you have the setup for it.

Everything else was just you taking ***out of context and isn't worth replying to.

As a advocate of Whinja's rights, I'm always supportive of an opportunity for WHM to contribute to helping with damage dealing or closing some rad-to-the-power-of-sick skillchains, but I will say that in a party situation I think its best for the WHMs to stick to curing. Sometimes it can be a huge buttpain to main heal and try to concentrate on WSing and keeping hastes and buffs up, especially if you really should be resting MP. Plus, a lot of the hardcore WHMs I know set their cures and other buffs/enhancing spells to <t> and not <st> to not waste time throwing out spells, so changing all of your macros to <st> and also throwing out some crucial last-minute curebombs can be tricky. As for situations such as campaign, solo/duoing and many lv.75 functions, I absolutely approve of it.

Skill > hMP > MP